Kominicki: Big, rich and still trying to catch a break

Congress is considering a one-shot tax break for U.S. companies that have stockpiled profits in such offshore havens as the Seychelles, the Caymans and the Enrons.
The idea, called a repatriation holiday, is an obvious hit with big multinational firms, which would pay just 5.25 percent in taxes, versus the normal 35 percent. Many in Washington ...

2 comments

Put your money where your mouth is…
One idea to keep the corporations honest would be to ask them to sign a pledge to “Invest in America.” Cisco CEO John Chambers has publicly stated he would invest more here if he could just get the money back into the states penalty free. Laws or one-time amnesty programs only go so far. Public opinion can be even stronger and a public pledge to America would certainly hold their feet to the fire.

Since most of the solar power equipment we use here is being made in China, why don’t we succeed on several levels by allowing the money back in only as investment in manufacturing solar equipment for use in the U.S. only. It succeeds on several fronts (arguements and statistics aside for now):
- will lower the cost of the equipment through economics of competition.
- Create jobs to manufature, ship and install
-enable nearly every homeowner to have some sort of installation to produce power for themselves and when added together creates “free” energy into the grid.
- reduce our dependency on oil, coal and other sources.
-create the need for at home research to improve the efficiency simply for someone to make a better mousetrap or out of real interest in the technology and benefits.
-give congress something effective and realistic to take credit for as long as they don’t over think or regulate and create empires of their own (like 25,000 Dept of Energy employees unable to accomplish their mission statement- read it and see what I mean).

If they don’t then I echo Doug Manditch’s reminder from yesterday- Re-Elect No One!